December 12th 2025

oakclass@winterbourneearls.wilts.sch.uk

Phonics, Reading and Writing

This week has been a revision week where we have practised the letter sounds, tricky words and other words that we collectively struggled with last week in our assessment week.  The children are progressing at a steady rate and we are really encouraged with their achievements. Please keep up the practice during the Christmas holidays as 2 weeks is a long time without our daily Phonics lessons! J We will collect their reading books in next Wednesday so there will not be new Phonics Reading books for the holidays.

City Hall Visit – Wednesday 10^th December

We had a wonderful afternoon out on Wednesday.  The children’s behaviour made us incredibly proud and it was wonderful to see them enjoying the show. 

Colours of Christmas

On Tuesday afternoon, our lovely School Chaplain came to teach us the Christmas Story in more detail through a lesson called, ‘Colours of Christmas’.  The children had a wonderful time and the lesson was very ‘hands on’ and interactive.  Thank you to Nicky!

Final week of term, Nativity Service, Pyjama afternoon and Festive Wishes

As the end of term looms, this will be our final weekly news letter.  We have our Nativity service in church on Tuesday morning, starting at 9.45am (suggest arriving close to 9.30am to get a seat!) Please can children come to school wearing their costume (with change of school uniform in a named carrier bag) unless alternative arrangements have been made with staff.

On the last day of term, the children can if they wish, bring pyjamas to school to change into ready for a Christmas film during the afternoon.  Please send them in in normal uniform for the first half of the day.

Wishing you all a very Happy and Healthy Christmas - The Oak Class Staff

December 5th 2025

oakclass@winterbourneearls.wilts.sch.uk

Phonics, Reading and Writing

Thank you so much for all your hard work supporting your children at home.  Mrs Tattersall has been very busy this week, carrying out one to one Phonics assessments.  

Our learning this week has been mainly recapping on previous knowledge but in addition to this, we have learnt the following tricky words: ‘we’, ‘me’ and ‘be’

Classroom Activities and Welly Walks

The children have been very busy working to wrap up presents in the Father Christmas workshop, complete with Elf hats!  The Role Play area has transformed from Percy the Park Keeper’s Hut to a Stable for Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus, whilst outside, the children have been reinacting the Nativity story with the help of the puppet theatre and stick puppets resembling the characters from the story.  

We have taken the decision to finish Welly Walks for the time being.  The route as Winter sets in has become very muddy and in places, slippery.  Thank you for all those who volunteered to support these walks over the past few weeks.  They have been a huge success.

City Hall Visit – Wednesday 10^th December

We are very much looking forward to taking your children to see ‘Dear Santa’ at the City Hall on Wednesday.  We will leave school at about 1230 in time for a 1 o’clock performance and will return to school for around 1500.  The children do not need to bring anything additional to school on the day.  If they usually come in PE kit on a Wednesday, they still need to do so as this lesson happens in the morning.        

Next week we will be carrying out our end of phase phonics assessments, the results of which may mean that we will be having another re-jig of your children’s Reading Groups, depending on their results.  Please keep practising over the weekend, especially the tricky words as these also crop up in the assessments and in addition, they will need to decode simple words.  There is no expectation for your children to be able to write these words at this stage however in the classroom, some of the older children have been writing words, phrases and sentences as modelled in our Phonics lessons.  They really are coming on in ‘leaps and bounds’! J

Phonics, Reading and Writing

The digraphs we have learnt this week are:

‘sh’, ‘th’, ‘ng’ as in ‘ring’ and ‘nk’ as in ‘sink’. We have learnt how to write each of these letters/digraphs using the phrases provided to you, ensuring each letter is started in the correct place. Our new tricky words this week were ‘she’, ‘push’, ‘he’ and ‘of’. The sentences the children have been decoding in our daily phonics lessons are ‘Can I fix a van?’ and ‘Can a moth quack?’ as a couple of examples.  We have begun talking about capital letters for the beginning of sentences and also full stops to show the end.

You will find another copy of our learnt sounds to date as well as a list of tricky words.  We hope you find these helpful with the homework!

Maths

As well as a continued focus on 4 and 5, we have thought about our important ‘counting rules’.  There are 3 of these as follows:

• When counting objects, we only count them once.
• When we count objects, we say the number names in order
• When we count things, the last number we say is the total number of objects. 

These all sound obvious to us as adults but we teach these explicitly to help the children understand their importance.

Other Curriculum Areas

Although we always inform you of our English and Maths teaching, all the other curriculum areas are taught each week including, Geography, RE, History (next term), Arts and Crafts, Music, Science, PE and of course elements of PSED (personal, social and emotional development) through our relevant schemes of work.  Some of these other subject areas can be seen in photographs on our class webpage…do take a browse.

Key Stage 1 Christmas Play (not our class, just years 1 and 2)

This takes place next week at the Glebe Hall but is unfortunately only for the families of children in Year 1 and Year 2. Oak class have the opportunity to go to see their dress rehearsal on Monday afternoon which we are very excited about.  This will be your little guys next year and the year after so something to look forward to for you all.

It seems as though winter is truly here!  It’s good to see children coming to school wearing thick, warm coats along with hats and gloves.  In addition, base layers are always a good idea.  Long sleeved and either white or black.  PLEASE LABEL EVERY ITEM, INCLUDING GLOVES.  Because our classroom and outdoor areas are free flow, we often have our classroom door left open and it can get very cold! The joys of the Early Years!!

Phonics, Reading and Writing

The letter sounds we have learnt this week are:

‘qu’, ‘z’, ‘s’ at the end of words for plurals and the digraph ‘ch’.  We have learnt how to write each of these letters/digraphs using the phrases provided to you, ensuring each letter is started in the correct place.

We have also learnt new tricky words, ‘go’, ‘no’, ‘to’ and ‘into’.  Please continue to practise these words alongside the new sounds as they’ve struggled to remember these despite daily and sometimes twice daily sessions at school this week.  Words we have been learning to spell and write have been, ‘zip’, ‘buzz’, ‘quick’, ‘quack’, ‘naps’, ‘hits’, ‘chip’, ‘rich’, ‘off’ and ‘yes’.

Maths

We have been learning about the ‘fourness of 4’ and the ‘fiveness of 5’.  We have looked at the different ways in which we can make both of these numbers eg, 3 and 1 make 4 and 2 and 2 make 4.  We have watched ‘Stampolines’ and ‘I can Count’ from the Numberblocks series.  These continue to be a vital part of our mathematics teaching and of course, the children love it!

Flu Vaccines

The children who partook in the Flu treatments this morning were all superstars.  We discussed it beforehand as a ‘tickle up the nose’ and they all took it in their stride.  Well done guys and thank you Parents for ‘underplaying’ it.

November 14th

Your children have settled back into the routines of the new term very well.  They are really working hard and enjoying showing us what they know and what they can do.  We try to provide time for ‘Show Time’ each day where their teachers provide opportunities to show the rest of the class their work if they have produced something which their teachers are really pleased with.  This can be work in their writing, phonics, maths or equally something they have done which demonstrates either kindness, respect or a readiness to learn; our 3 school values. 

Phonics, Reading and Writing

The letter sounds we have learnt this week are:

V, w, x and y.  We have learnt how to write each of these letters using the phrases provided to you, ensuring each letter is started in the correct place.

We have also learnt new tricky words, ‘and’, ‘has’, ‘his’ and ‘her’.  Please continue to practise these words alongside the new sounds as they’ve struggled to remember these despite daily and sometimes twice daily sessions at school this week.  The children have read phrases such as ‘a sad cat on a bed’ as a whole class and they have also written the following words independently – ‘fat’, ‘sock’, ‘sad’, ‘hug’ and ‘rock’.

Maths

We have been learning about Circles and Triangles in maths.  We now know that triangles have both 3 sides and corners and that circles have one curved side that goes all the way around but no corners.  Help your children to spot circles and triangles when out and about at the weekend.

Christmas and our Nativity Performance

Year 1 and 2 put on a Christmas play in the Glebe Hall for parents of Year 1 and 2 children each year.  Oak class used to join in until we realised that rehearsals were pretty tricky for our youngest learners; there was a lot of sitting and not a lot of action!  We now do something separately from the rest of Key Stage 1.  We lead the Christmas Service in St Michael’s church each year (this year taking place on Tuesday 16^th December) with Oak Class taking the leading roles.  We act out the Christmas Nativity story by dressing up as Nativity characters and we ‘tell’ the story with the help of the Year 6 Buddies.  We will soon be picking names out of a hat to match characters to each member of the class and we will ask you please, to provide a costume matching the character description eg Donkey, Angel, Wise Man.  We will endeavour to do this task by the end of next week at the latest in order for you to seek out a costume in plenty of time.  We have a small number of costumes in school so please let us know if you are having trouble sourcing a costume.

Wishing you all a happy weekend and please remember, if there is anything you would like to discuss, or any queries you have, please don’t hesitate to speak with one of us at the gate.  We can always arrange another meeting if it is a matter you think may take longer than a ‘gate chat’.  The door is always open.

November 6^th 2025

oakclass@winterbourneearls.wilts.sch.uk

Dear Parents,

It was really lovely to see all your children’s smiling faces after their busy half term holidays.  We hope you all had a lovely week and a bit.

Phonics, Reading and Writing

A heartfelt thanks to those of you who have been reinforcing your child’s learning at home over the holiday.  It has been very evident this first week back, who has practised!

The letter sounds we have learnt this week are:

ff, ll, ss and j.  The first 3 sounds are digraphs, “two letters, one sound” and we find these particular ones at the end of words like ‘fluff’, ‘mess’ and ‘hill’. 

We have also learnt new tricky words, ‘put’, ‘pull’, ‘full’ and ‘as’ in addition to ‘is’, ‘I’ and ‘the’ from last term.  Please continue to practise these words alongside the new sounds as they’ve struggled to remember these despite daily and sometimes twice daily sessions at school this week.

Remembrance

Next Tuesday the children will be taking part in a Remembrance Service which will be held on the school playground (weather permitting).  They will be taking part in a two minutes silence.  We will of course be explaining what this is about prior to the day but if you would like to reinforce the meaning behind this yourselves at home, that would be great.

Lunchtimes

The children are encouraged to use cutlery (children’s sized knives, forks and spoons) at lunchtimes when appropriate.  Staff are always on hand to help with cutting up if any child finds it tricky or there is a certain food that is difficult to cut.  Please encourage use of cutlery at home as we still have a few children using fingers to eat.  There is an expectation that by the end of Reception year, the children are using knives and forks independently. 

Wellie Walks

At my time of writing this, the children will be completing their first Welly Walk.  Thank you to our volunteer helpers.  

Thank you as always for your support.

The Oak Class Staff                                                                                                                                          

Next term promises to be a lovely term with Welly Walks beginning as well as all sorts of preparations for Christmas and our Class Nativity Play in St Michael's Church in the village. We will also be travelling by coach into Salisbury to the City Hall to see the production of Dear Santa by Rod Campbell.  We hope to put on our second Parent Workshop of the year; this time focusing on Maths and the syllabus for your child's first year in school, as well as informing you of some homework which will be coming home each week. 

October 17^th

oakclass@winterbourneearls.wilts.sch.uk . 

Phonics, Reading and Writing

Our Phonics this week has been a Revision week whilst Mrs Tattersall has been undertaking your children’s individual assessments of their learning so far. This data will influence your child’s reading group next term and we hope that a few more children will be ready to move onto blending books with words. Please continue to practice their sounds and our tricky words over the holidays.  Mrs Tattersall will have made a note in your child’s reading record of the sounds they still need to keep working on.  Your involvement with additional practice at home is SO important for their development and working in partnership with school, helps to promote a team approach and better outcomes for your children.

Parent’s Evening Appointments

I am very much looking forward to seeing you all for these appointments next week.  Please come prepared with any questions or queries you may have.

Arrangements for the end of term

This term feels like a long one and your children will understandably be exhausted.  Please ensure they are well rested over the holidays as next term is another long one and holds the added excitement of Christmas and all that this entails!  We finish for half term next Wednesday.  As we are rejigging the Group Reading groups and need to ensure we have all the necessary reading books back in, we will not be sending reading books home for the holidays however your children will have new library books to share as usual on Tuesday and these can be kept for the holiday.

October 10^th

oakclass@winterbourneearls.wilts.sch.uk . 

Phonics, Reading and Writing

The letter sounds we have learnt this week are:

h, b, f and l  We have also learnt a new tricky word, ‘the’.  It’s tricky because the ‘e’ makes a ‘u’ sound. Our ‘blend to read’ words are dog, cup, ten, pet, red, get, mum, nod, duck and kid.  We have also been learning to write, dog, ten, red, mum and kid. Please could you reinforce these sounds and the tricky word as well as the writing tasks at home this weekend and in the week ahead? 

Harvest Festival

As you will have seen from our parent information, next Tuesday is our Harvest Festival service at St Michael’s Church, starting at 0945. Do come along if you are able. Last week, the children got together with their Buddies to make harvest collages.  They will have the opportunity to hold these up during our singing of ‘Cauliflowers Fluffy’ as part of the service! 

Parent’s Evening Appointments

Please don’t forget to sign up using link that Mrs Hyde sent out last week.  Please remember that these appointments are only for 10 minutes each. I always feel the need to mention this again as sometimes it can feel like no time at all.  If there is something you feel needs a longer discussion, you are welcome to make a separate appointment at another time. 

October 3^rd 2025

oakclass@winterbourneearls.wilts.sch.uk

Dear Parents,

Thank you so much to all who have worked hard to practice writing names with their children during the past week or so.  It has been lovely to see so many of the children able to label their work independently; it makes them very proud!

Phonics, Reading and Writing

The letter sounds we have learnt this week are:

ck, e, u and r

(ck is what we call a ‘digraph’ – 2 letters, one sound and this one is found at the end of words)

We have also learnt a new tricky word, ‘I’.  We have been blending to read a number of words...dig, pat, dad, man, cat, sip, cap, sock, red, duck, ten, get and kit.  A great way to practice these is to cut up the individual letter sounds or use the flash cards if you have them, lay them out individually, ready to make each word.  The children will then show you how we read each individual sound in isolation 3 times, getting quicker each time until we are able to blend them together to read the word.  Please don’t be discouraged if they say each sound and then come out with a completely random word when they try to blend them together!  This has happened a lot this week but we only learn by making mistakes!  We’ve had a few giggles along the way.

Family and Community Learning

We have the wonderful opportunity through the Family and Community Learning group to receive some ‘training’ under 2 headings; Helping My Child with Anxiety and Worry and Helping My Child Build Concentration and Resilience. These promise to be really good courses and if you are interested, please telephone or email the office where you can be added to the list.

September 26th

Another happy week in Oak Class with all the children in full swing with routines, expectations and fun, not to mention, a lot of learning along the way.

Phonics, Reading and Writing

The letter sounds we have learnt this week are:

g, o, c and k

We have also learnt a new tricky word, ‘is’.  It’s tricky because the ‘s’ makes a ‘z’ sound. Please could you reinforce these sounds and the tricky word at home this weekend and in the week ahead?  We have also been blending to read a number of words.  Please see below for these words.

Today we talked about the initial letter in each of the children’s names.  I was surprised to hear a lot of children using the name of the letter rather than the sound.  Please could you reinforce this message at home eg. the short clipped ‘d’ rather than ‘dee’ for the first letter.  Your continued support to help the children write their names would also be fantastic as we are learning the correct formation for a lot of the new letter sounds.  Please note that we do not use capitals unless it is at the start of their name.

Wellie Walks and new email address

We will be starting our Welly Walks after the half term holiday. We will try to fit in as many as we can before the chaos of Christmas unfolds!  We plan to make Welly Walks on a Thursday afternoon from 1400-1500. The first date will be 30/10 and then 6/11, 13/11, 20/11, 27/11, 4/12. If you are able to help on these walks, please let us know by emailing the following address: oakclass@winterbourneearls.wilts.sch.uk .  If you could stipulate which dates you can manage, this will enable us to plan accordingly as we need to ensure we have the correct child to adult ratios. Please also now use the above address for any other messages and this will come through to all staff in Oak Class.  It will save your important Oak Class emails becoming lost in amongst all the other emails that come through to your child’s teachers each day.

Coughs and Colds

Yes, the season for coughs and colds is upon us!  Please could we ask you to ensure your child is well practised at blowing their nose in a tissue.  We have a constant supply of tissues in the classroom but a regular phrase from teachers in Oak Class at the moment seems to be, “Please could you go and blow your nose?” Your help with encouraging independence in this area would be very much appreciated. 

Thank you as always for your support.

September 12th 

We are now at the end of the second week of term and all the children have settled extremely well.  Drop offs have, on the whole, been happy and positive.  In fostering the children's independence we are happy to report that the children are all putting their belongings where they need to go, including remembering which bug box to put their book bags in.  Well done everyone; a great team effort.

The children have all taken part in whole class phonics and whole class maths lessons this week.  They have all sat brilliantly on the carpet, listened, joined in and are all very good at putting hands up to answer questions!  This week we have covered the sounds, s, a, t and p.   We have learnt what each letter looks like (it's grapheme), how they are formed and also what sounds they make (phoneme).  We have also done some segmenting and blending work with games such as 'Can you touch your...' using segmenting sounds to encourage the children to know that 'h - ea - d' sounds out 'head'.  The other favourite is 'What sound does a 'd - u - ck' make?  Next week we will be covering sounds i, n, m and d.  We will introduce the children to a white board and pen each so that they can practise forming each letter each day during the whole class input. 

Sending the children home to you at the end of the day is getting quicker.  Thank you for bearing with us as we get to know you all.  As you will be aware, matching your child to their correct 'owner' is taken extremely seriously and as some children need to be gathered for Fox Cubs after school care as well as organising the children who catch the bus, the process sometimes needs 'tweaking' in order to help things run smoothly.  To this end, we tried something a little different today whereby the children line up outside with all their belonging with them.  Please help this process by waving at us when you see your child appear at the front of the line so that we can send them out to you.  Fox Cubs and Bus Children line up inside the classroom.  

Snacks - the children are provided with a fruit or vegetable snack each morning.  This snack can be a tomato, a carrot, raisins, green beans, apples or pears for example.  If you wish to provide your own snack from home you can do so although please only send in fruit or vegetables in line with our healthy eating policy.  Lots of the children are taking up the offer of school milk which is encouraging and ensures their tummies are kept nicely topped up until lunchtime. 

The children will bring home their wordless books this week.  We hope you enjoy these over the course of the next week and have also enjoyed looking at their library book together.  As a reminder, this will be changed next Tuesday.  Please make sure it's in their book bag ready. 

August 2025

I expect there is a lot of nervous energy buzzing around in your households now that the Summer Holidays are drawing to a close.  We too are anticipating the start of the new academic year and are very much looking forward to your children starting in Oak class; their first day being Tuesday 2nd September. 

As mentioned in the talk given on the Induction Evening (I know, it seems a lot time ago!), please bring your children around to the back of the school and make your way to the Reception Garden Gate (there will be parents who have done it all before with their first children so just follow their lead) where a member of the Oak Class Team will be there ready to greet your children.  We have arranged staggered start times so that your children aren't overwhelmed.  Mrs Hyde in the office will have sent you a message with the start time for the first day.  Please refer to this message by way of a reminder.

We strongly encourage you to leave your children at the gate so that they can make their own way in.  It is fairly unusual for children to be upset but of course, if there is any unhappiness, it may be that we ask you to come into the garden to settle your child if we both think this would help.  You know your child best, a quick departure might be what has worked well at Nursery and we can be on hand to facilitate this should the need arise.  

Collection time for Tuesday and Wednesday during the first week will be 11.50am from the same place that you dropped your children off.  It will take us some time to get to know you all and which child matches with which parents to please bear with us for the first couple of weeks and the process of dismissing your children will become quicker, we promise! For Thursday and Friday of the first week, collection will be at 12.50pm to enable the children to stay for lunch and from the following Monday, the children will be full time unless we have had a conversation to the contrary.  

If there is anything at all that you are unsure about, please email the office (this will be manned from Monday 1st September by Mrs Hyde) 

In the meantime, please enjoy the rest of the holidays and take some time to have a look at the Parent Planner which is produced at the beginning of each term to enable you to see a little part of what your children will be learning about.

With best wishes,

The Oak Class Team

(Mrs Woodfine, Mrs Tattersall and Mrs Natt)

Phonics and Early Reading Parents Workshop and New Starters Picnic

Please come along to our first Parent Workshop of the Year.

Wednesday 3rd September at 11.30 in the Reception Classroom.  One adult per household please due to limited space.

Also there will be a New Parent Picnic just after 12 o'clock, also on the Wednesday, at the Recreation Ground in the village.  Bring your picnic for you and your child - Mrs Jenny Head, Rev Peter Ostli-East and other prominent members of the local community will be there to speak to you and it will be an opportunity to spend time getting to know some of the other families starting school at the same time as your own.  I shall also pop down from school to answer any questions you may have.